By Klaus Lauer
BERLIN (Reuters) – Climate activists tried to disrupt the long-delayed opening of Berlin’s new airport on Saturday. One glued himself to the door of a plane, others climbed up the terminal to hang posters and many crowded into the building dressed as penguins.
The opening of Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport – known as BER – comes at a time when the global aviation industry is struggling with a shortage of travelers due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Construction work on the new airport began in 2006, and the opening was originally planned for 2011. However, due to construction problems and technical difficulties, the date was repeatedly postponed – a major embarrassment that damaged Germany’s reputation as an efficient airport.
Because of the delays, Berlin now relies on two outdated and overcrowded Cold War-era airports: Tegel, which serves the west of the city, and Schönefeld, the former airport of communist East Berlin, which has been integrated into the new facility.
“The time for jokes about BER must now be over,” said Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer, adding that the country must start a new “economic miracle” like after the Second World War in order to recover from the pandemic.
The first plane to land was an Easyjet flight, a special service that had taken off from Tegel, on the other side of the city. This airport will be closed next weekend. A few minutes later, a Lufthansa plane landed.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said at a press conference that the crisis in the industry will continue for a long time: “We have to be realistic. It will take until the middle of the decade at the earliest before we reach the level of 2019 again.”
A video released by environmental group Extinction Rebellion shows a protester taping himself to the door of a Pegasus plane while other protesters hung a sign reading “We want to live” on the stairs to the plane.
Previously, dozens of activists – many in penguin costumes – had protested inside and outside the new airport, carrying signs with slogans such as “Flying was yesterday” and “BER opening cancelled due to climate crisis”.
Berlin Airports is expecting only 10 million passengers in the German capital this year, compared to 36 million last year. The current capacity of BER is 40 million.
Due to the pandemic, Berlin-based Easyjet is reducing its fleet from 34 to 18 aircraft and laying off 418 of its approximately 1,500 employees, with a further 320 employees on short-time work until June next year.
The crisis is also exacerbating the financial problems of the new airport, which is owned by the federal government and the states of Berlin and Brandenburg and costs almost six billion euros (7.1 billion dollars) – about three times the original budget.
(Additional reporting by Ilona Wissenbach, writing by Emma Thomasson; editing by James Drummond and Christina Fincher)
